[1] At age 17, he entered the architectural practice of Jean-Baptiste-Augustin Beausire, an engineer and "maître des bâtiments" to the city of Paris, as an apprentice.

In 1747, Perronet was named director of the Bureau des dessinateurs du Roi (Royal Office of Designers), which had also just put Daniel-Charles Trudaine in charge of producing maps and plans for the kingdom.

[1] As its organizer, inspiration, and teacher, Perronet was his students' spiritual father and used a new teaching method that seems very contemporary to modern eyes.

In 1750, Perronet was promoted to inspector general (inspecteur général), and by 1763, he had become first engineer for bridges (Premier ingénieur du Roi).

The street next to the site of the École des ponts et chaussées (delimiting Paris's 6th and 7th arrondissements) is now named after him and a statue of him, sculpted by Adrien Étienne Gaudez, has been erected on the northeast corner of the Île de Puteaux, at the foot of the pont de Neuilly (whose first stone version, built in 1772 and surviving until 1942, was his work).